The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh. (23 page)

S
everal people, who were running across the field, came to my aid. Looking me over, presuming I had just climbed from the wreckage and was disorientated. I brushed them aside, stating I was fine compared to others who really needed help. They gave me one more glance before continuing on their way, satisfied that if I was walking and talking then I must be fine. But after what I had just witnessed I would never be okay again.

Then I reached the road, masses of cars were parked on the hard shoulder, engines turning over, just as they left them before heading to be of some help. Some cars had people sat in them, either crying at the sight before them, or to young or old to be of any real usefulness.

I picked a car that wasn’t blocked in, and had its keys resting on the seat, either dropped in haste or left on purpose. It was a H. registration blue Vauxhall Astra.

I tossed my bag on the passenger seat, started the engine and forced the gear into place. No one noticed me driving off in some one else’s car; the scene was just too hectic. Just before I pulled away, fire engines and ambulances started to pull over. A fireman cut a large chain that was keeping the gate secure. The vehicles then started to pour across the flat field.

I could imagine the paramedics pouring from the ambulances dumfounded at the sight around them, and trying to figure out where to start.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the owner realized his car had been stolen, so I wanted to simply get to somewhere where I could get on some other sort of transport, and continue on my way to London.

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure exactly where I was, until I came across the first huge green signpost, stating in big white letters that Bristol was twenty-seven miles away. It was a large city, with plenty of hotels to accommodate any tired driver.

As I headed towards Bristol I saw another sign for a service station, which was only four miles away. I decided to pull into this service station, instead of continuing to drive along in the stolen car.

I wanted to sit and rest in case the shock of what happened started to kick in. But then again, I had been feeling strange, almost numb for almost a week now, and even though what I had just been through and seen was horrific, I didn’t feel it stir my emotions the way it should have.

All service stations seem to be the same – slightly different in design – but all exactly the same with respects to what they provide. Large car parks with numerous hidden corners. A large complex filled with a large open eating area, with numerous establishments to choose from. Either McDonald’s or Burger King or sometimes KFC, with the service stations own food serving area that provides dried up day old food, and grumpy attendants, who walk around wiping the tables with greasy cloths that simply smear dirty water over the Formica top. Also a small odds-and-ends shop and a small arcade and flower shop. All selling their products at ten times the price they would normally be. Because lets face it, who can complain? The next service station could be up to thirty miles away.

I pulled in.

The side road leading to the service station was so long I was starting to think I had missed the turning, or was going the wrong way. But suddenly a large gaudy sign advertised the entrance to the station. I turned in, continuing to drive down yet another long winding road. It eventually opened up into a mammoth car park.

The first section was for lorry drivers, which was starting to fill up. It then led down another smaller lane leading into another huge car park that the main complex seemed to be huddled in the middle of. I continued driving around, until I found a quiet out of the way location. It was around to one side.

Large blue bins the size of cars rested up against one long dark wall. Small lights units bought grainy light to the area, which was fine with me. It was also surrounded by tall-uncut bushes, which the leaves hadn’t fallen from, but had simply turned brown.

I left the key in the ignition. Hopefully someone else would notice and steal the car, leading it far away from me.

Walking around the side, I passed staff members having a quick smoke, before returning inside with dirty unwashed hands to serve the customers, with their nicotine covered fingers.

I seemed to have parked as far away from the entrance as physically possible. It took a good couple of minutes to reach the main door. While walking along I also noticed a Travel Lodge. I decided I would get something to eat before heading over to the hotel.

The inside of the service station was just as cold as outside. I walked past the small expensive shop, noticing tee-shirts, which I would look at on the way out. First I headed straight for the toilet.

Like all service stations the toilet was like a huge cattle market. Lorry drivers washing in the open sinks, shirtless, shaving or giving their armpits a quick splash. Even though there was sections put aside for lorry drivers, even showering facilities. But to use them they had to pay; where as the public toilets are free.

Numerous men stood staring at their own reflections. Brushing hair or trying to plaster an odd strand at the back down with handfuls of water. You had the children who seemed to be parentless, running around using the toilet as their private playground, screaming and calling out to friends or relatives. And not forgetting the cleaner who ignores everyone, walking around with his blackened mop, spilling far too much brown greasy water on the floor and seemingly missing half of it as he attempts to mop it back up.

I tried to ignore the mayhem and headed for the first available cubicle. The first was filled with the janitors cleaning equipment.
Hasn’t he got a cupboard for that?
The next couple had OUT OF ORDER, written on sheets of paper then duck-taped to the door. The next few were busy. The next was covered in runny shit, all over the seat and up the wall and filling the bowl. How do they do that? It looked like an elephant with the splats had reversed into the cubicle and repainted the toilet and sidewalls. Even stranger was there was no toilet paper anywhere in sight? How do they do all that, and not wipe?

The next cubicle was empty, but I wanted a few between the stink and me. Second from the end was empty and almost acceptably clean – if you call someone wiping his backside then dropping the soiled paper beside the toilet, clean. Where did they think they were, Latin America? I kicked it into the next empty cubicle.

I shut the door, and had to pull the top with my hand to get the catch to slide into place. I dropped the seat and sat down, pulling my bag onto my lap. Then, with some tissue, I filled in the holes that the perverts had made. Glory holes I think they call them? Then I opened my bag.

The whole reason for having to go through all this was simply because all the money was piled in the backpack. I didn’t want to simply open it in front of some cashier to grab a handful of money and slap it down on the counter. That would start alarm bells ringing inside someone’s head, and the next thing I would know some old wrinkled security guard, who thinks himself to be one of the Keystone Cops – that should be wrapped up tight against the cold and soaking his feet in hot water while drinking Ovaltine – would be asking me to step to one side, thinking I had robbed a bank.

I pulled out what I thought would be enough and filled my wallet, before zipping the bag back up and hooking it over my shoulders.

I sat quietly for a few moments, resting my eyes and aching body, trying to get everything into perspective. But I needed food, my gastric juices were bubbling away. And then a wash and a good night’s sleep. I wouldn’t concentrate on what had happened. My mind had become adept at shutting things out. And I had to keep moving, if I sat too long after the pummelling my body have received, I would start ceasing up.

I reopened my eyes and was rewarded with a childish drawing of someone’s erect – over exaggerated – genitals, along with an advertisement, with some closet gays phone number. It always made me wonder about their mentality, are they truly stupid enough to write down their own mobile or home phone numbers on latrine walls? And if so, then why don’t the police do anything about it? Children sit in these cubicles, and have to look at this shit. Surely they had websites or clubs they could meet at?

With seeing the telephone numbers it reminded me of my phone. I pulled it out of my trouser pocket, expecting it to be broken, or at least battered. The iPhone was fine. It was still off. I would leave it off until I needed to use it. For what, I had no idea.

Once again my stomach started grumbling. I needed food.

I needed normality.

I needed my fucking life back.

I pulled some paper from the roll, to make some noise to make whoever was listening think I was finishing up. I then tossed it down the toilet and gave it a flush. I composed myself for a few moments before unlatching the door, giving it a kick to get it to unwedge form the stall on either side. I then headed for the food serving area, after washing my hands, and checking my altered appearance was still looking good. Even after everything I had just been through I still didn’t stand out. I looked plain and normal. Not like someone who had just survived a train crash. I simply had the start of a bruise on the side of my head where the wallet had hit me.

I dislike eating in service stations, mainly and simply for what I’ve already stated, about the overcooked food and the sloppy service. Once again I wasn’t disappointed.

I ignored McDonald’s and headed for the food serving area. Food already prepared and left sitting for hours while it dehydrates. Nothing looked moderately appetising. Cottage pie that had yellow shrivelled up mashed potato and tube filled meat. Rubbery chicken in some kind of red sauce, that looked at least a couple days old. Lasagna, which looked over baked, the sheets of pasta looking like brittle bones covered in congealed blood. All along with a collection of other unsavoury items that fared no better which I couldn’t identify. I would have given up and eaten McDonald’s, but I disliked the large burger chain even more than the service station.

I was debating having either some repacked salad or sandwich, but I decided I needed something hot, so I would take a chance with the mummified food. A couple of wrinkled sausages that looked like the drawing on the toilet wall, and skinny chips, French fries; they call them. Whatever happened to good old thick chips like your mom use to make? After you bite through the crunchy outer shell of these anorectic chips there seemed to be no potato left in the middle. And of course the ever-present baked beans that England seems to thrive on.

I poured myself some tea and picked up the sugar, salt and sauce sashays and then pushed my tray along to the cashier. The middle-aged woman gave me no greeting and didn’t even look at me; she simply stared at my dinner as if she wanted to tip its contents on the floor, and started to punch away on the oversized keyboard. Several times she picked up a tacky piece of dirty paper to consider its contents, before returning to her keypunching. Once she had finished she spat the price – as if I had in some way offended her for being there – and then thrusting out her dirty fingered hand waiting for the money, she then stared at the twenty-pound note I had handed her, as if it was some form of foreign currency, before finally dropping the change in my hand, as if she loathed touching me.

After almost having a heart attack at the price of over nine pounds, I wandered off to find a moderately clean table, one where I wouldn’t need to use all my napkins just to make it clean enough to put my tray on.

I consumed my lukewarm food while continually looking around the eating area. Even though it wasn’t the best meal I had ever eaten, it did make me feel better; having something warm inside me. I struggled to remember the last time I had eaten something hot?

I hadn’t heard anything yet about the train crash. No one was talking about it. And the service station had no radio playing, just piped droll instrumental music that sounded a little bit like the old song
Tubular Bells
which was used as the sound track to
The Exorcist.

As I sat eating everyone ignored me, which was fine. I don’t know what I was looking for, apart from the obvious policemen. But something didn’t seem right. I suppose I was looking around to see if he was here somewhere. I had a creepy feeling that I would see him sat on the table facing me, not touching his food, and simply staring at me with his ever changing eyes, moving one moment, then dead the next. Cigarette hanging from his smiling mouth.

Thankfully the restaurant was uneventful.

It was now getting late and the place was starting to bustle with the evening drivers. I needed to get over to the Travel Lodge before they filled up all there rooms. And as an after though I realized I should of checked in and ordered food up to my room, it couldn’t be that much more expensive than what I had just paid.

Just to be awkward, I left my tray and soiled plate on the table for someone else to clear away and headed for the small shop.

The shop was crammed full of sweets, crisp, drinks, ice creams and a large assortment of almost everything else, filling the shelves to bursting point. Also the collection of gaudy ornaments that everyone seems to buy in service stations; last minute presents for someone they forgot about. But it did have what I was looking for, underwear, even though it did have a comical image on. The soaks were just as bad. Also I picked up a bright tee-shirt that had
Cheddar Gorge & Caves
wrote across the front, whatever and wherever that is? I collected what I needed and paid. Once again surprised by its high cost.

At this rate I wasn’t sure if I had put enough money in my wallet.

I headed out into the marginally colder evening, heading across the overflowing car park towards the Travel Lodge, its subdued lighting making it look like a welcoming break from the busy harsh concrete car park around it.